Networks have enhanced our ability to communicate and access information by allowing one personal computer to communicate over a network (or network connection) with another personal computer and/or other networking devices, using electronic messages. When transferring an electronic message between personal computers or networking devices, the electronic message will often pass through a protocol stack that performs operations on the data within the electronic message (e.g., packetizing, routing, flow control).
Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) is a protocol suite for securing Internet Protocol (IP) communications by authenticating and encrypting each IP packet of a communication session. IPsec can include protocols for establishing mutual authentication between agents at the beginning of the session and negotiation of cryptographic keys to be used during the session. In addition, IPsec can be used in protecting data flows between a pair of hosts (host-to-host), between a pair of security gateways (network-to-network), or between a security gateway and a host (network-to-host).
Internet Protocol security (IPsec) uses cryptographic security services to protect communications over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. IPsec can support network-level peer authentication, data origin authentication, data integrity, data confidentiality (encryption), and replay protection.